Midsummer Nightmare's Dream
by fantacination
Summary: Alternate CoM-verse. Zexion could still use Riku, someone with his own talent for percieving Darkness. And what would stop him from taking a different route? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Darkness to Darkness-- and from Darkness born. Zexion/Riku


Title: Midsummer Nightmare's Dream  
Character: Riku  
Pairing: Zexion/Riku  
Author: fantacination  
Rating: R-ish  
Prompt: 05- A midsummer night  
Summary: CoM-timeline. Zexion can use Riku. What if he takes a different approach from the original plan?

disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix.

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Lexaeus and Vexen were gone. Their scents vanished on ghostly winds. Wiped clean, nevermore. Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust; Darkness onto Darkness.

And from Darkness born.

Zexion snapped his book shut, the paper and leather coming together with a solid thump. Embossed on the cover was: Shakespeare V.IV. He fingered the edges idly, the sound of paper. In his other hand, he summoned Lexicon, the tome opening to an unmarked page. It's a matter of a moment to touch the pages, murmuring in soft, dead Latin, language of the erudite.

Darkness blossomed from his fingers, twisting into ribbons of black, black ink. Ink made from a void. The absence of all things, eating away at the parchment sheets. Words form, then, running through the pages.

**_A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;  
She never had so sweet a changeling;  
And jealous Oberon would have the child  
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;  
_**  
Riku.

The boy could doubtless be useful, still. Lexaeus and Vexen were gone. But whoever said he couldn't make himself another ally? Not that doll, Vexen's toy, now Namine's--but the real one? A boy who smelled of Darkness, who could sense it, who could wield a Keyblade just as well as the misled brat making his way up the castle. Never thinking of what lay downstairs. Riku was young. With proper care, he could be molded.

And he was weak. Weak for his friends and his home. He could smell that particularly contemptuous scent from his first step.

**_Over hill, over dale,  
Thorough bush, thorough brier,  
Over park, over pale,  
Thorough flood, thorough fire,_**

Riku could smell darkness, but never had Zexion met anyone who wouldn't believe his eyes.

Word by word; inch by ever dark-festered inch, he constructed his worldlet. The illusion took the form of a forest, the canopy towering above and the grass velvety. Flowers sprang underfoot, all shades of gray and black, lolling tongues of poison and graceful seeds. Dew on grass and grass on dew.

He'd be here, soon.

There was still that card he'd gotten, memories of an island boy to set up the opening act. And then he'd be able to make the final touches, the nuances that would snare faltering feet.

Zexion didn't reveal himself. That wasn't to be the plan. There is no need. His entire world was a ventriloquist's dummy, ready to echo him as he spoke of doubts and lies; playing upon insecurities and feeding upon fears.

It was cruel. He knew it, and he didn't have the heart to care. This and every step was all part of his design, nothing more.

The image of a boy with spiking brown hair was no less a part of that.

"Sora." That half-sighing note was all Zexion needed to know he'd chosen correctly. Leaving the phantom torn Destiny Islands to rage around him, he stepped into his own illusion.

"You didn't really think I'd forgive you, right, Riku?" Sora's mouth said. "You're better off staying here, in the Darkness. Like them." The boy charged. Zexion's puppet strings trailing right after.

Riku swung his arm out instinctively, "Stop-!"

Cold steel suddenly sprang from his hand and the sharp length ends in a gaping, red-spilt wound in his best friend's chest. Sora's wide blue eyes stared at him, pupils pinpricks of shock. He coughed up bright red blood and clutched at Riku's shirt. His breath ghosting on Riku's cheek, warmth fading to clammy chillness, he whispered.

"See? You're… just like… them."

The stiffening body fell against him, solid with the last traces of warmth fading away. Zexion's illusions were only the best. Riku gaped at it, unseeing. It was impossible, _impossible_.

"No…"

_I can take you away from here._ Zexion murmured, layering his mental voice soothingly with the calm hypnotic tones of a puppeteer of men.

Red glistened and the metallic smell of blood permeates the air. Sora was on the ground, eyes wide open and irreversibly dead. "I… don't want to be here."

It was a chance the Schemer knew to take. With a turn of the page, the island vanished, the copied memory of Sora with it. Riku stood in a picturesque glade awash with watery color; so much color, none brighter than the blood on his hands.

**_Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,  
The childing autumn, angry winter, change  
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,  
By their increase, now knows not which is which:_**

And softly, softly, he laid one hand on Riku's shoulder. He couldn't feel, but a master illusionist didn't need to feel to show. He leaned towards Riku, one finger running down the boy's throat, tracing the beginning bump of an adam's apple. Shell-shocked, Riku didn't respond. That was exactly how Zexion wanted him. He pressed his lips to the nape of his neck and slid a gloveless hand up the boy's shirt. The little shudder that followed was good. It meant he was relaxing, that much closer to malleable. Like the pliant flesh beneath his hands.

Zexion understood the mind and the body. He knew that when the mind shut down, the body continued to function- much like a Nobody did without a heart. He knew his own body was warm, and that Riku couldn't deny the instinctive way he turned into warmth and comfort. Most of all, he knew exactly where a body was most sensitive to pleasure.

"You can stay here," the Schemer murmured, "stay with me."

He sifted his hand through silver hair to put moonlight to shame, and leaned his chin on Riku's shoulder. His other hand trailed down to worn pants, unsnapping the buttons and palming Riku in his hand. Riku gasped, arching, his face turned to a dark, swirling sky. Zexion's mouth grazed along the exposed line of his throat, soft skin yielding.

**_A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;  
She never had so sweet a changeling;_**

He didn't pay the lilting reminder any attention. Riku was in his hands, blush on cheeks and shuddering, pressing wantonly close. His ivory-pale hands clenched at the grass, never noticing the way the color comes away, fading to ash.

Turning Riku to sit on his lap, Zexion pressed his lips to his. An empty kiss for an empty soul. Then, he hoisted the boy's thighs up on his shoulders, supporting them on his hands and leaning his head in to take Riku's cock. Riku moaned into the moist heat, hips bucking and thighs straining.

One hand curled shading against his brow; Riku's eyes were open to a not-sky canopy. There was a face there, for a moment amongst the swirling shadows, elfin and anything but benign. He closed his eyes and he was back under nectar-spell. Brown-Violet-Blue. The swirl of running pastels of dreaming grass.

He came unexpectedly, with a cry, tears starting to prickle at the back of his eyes. Zexion gave his length one last, lingering swirl, spitting out the bitter cum, wiping the rest with the back of his hand. Now was the time for the next step.

_**…Whether it is better to be… feared rather than loved… we should wish to be both… **_

"Do you love me?" He unhooked Riku's legs, skimming his hands down that narrow waist and trailing over the curve of his buttocks to cup his thighs.

"Love you," Riku whispered. Lysander to Helena.

The sharp smile Zexion gave him was anything but.

Carefully carelessly, he let Riku drop onto him, tearing him asunder from the inside. Riku's cry is worldless, his arms reach to wrap around Zexion's neck. Something glistened on his dark lashes, maybe dew, maybe tears. It didn't really matter. Riku wasn't thinking anymore, wasn't knowing anymore.

Perfectly malleable.

Riku was choking on seeming, giving himself over to an endless night-black vision, desperate and cloying. All around him the bluebell flowers shrivel and fade. A perfectly wrought nightmare?

No, a _dream_. A butterfly dream in pale moonlight, born from the nectar in his eyes.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, after all

_-fin-_

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A/N: well, that was interesting. The quotes are from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Machiavelli's The Prince. XD They're both quite famous so I doubt people wouldn't have at least some idea. But there you go

I really enjoyed tucking the Shakespearean references-- did you get them?

Although the volume of the work is just nonsense. I only wanted to include Lex and Vex's numbers. Let's see... Oh and Zexion most awesome descriptions ever. XD He's way too handy for me.

I'm still a little eh about some parts, but over all, I guess it wasn't too bad And I need to submit something, like, now for the 10whores challenge over at LJ.

Comments and any typos or tense skips I missed will be much appreciated. I didn't really uh, beta it... sooo, yeah. ;P


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